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Twitter Not Hacked?

Many Twitter (News - Alert) users have been left scratching their heads with the recent e-mails asking users to reset their passwords. Users thought that either their account had been hacked or the Twitter website had been corrupted by hackers. Twitter has now come out to say that neither is true.

The e-mail that Twitter sent out, causing panic and worry among many users, read, “Twitter believes that your account may have been compromised by a website or service not associated with Twitter. We've reset your password to prevent others from accessing your account.”

Twitter says that they have a security policy in place that resets passwords for accounts that are believed to be corrupted by hackers and it sends the Twitter user an e-mail letting them know that they need to create a new password. Many Twitter users feel that there must have been some type of glitch in Twitter’s policy as a large number of users complained that they received the reset e-mail and were worried about hacking.

Twitter does warn users to check that their browser's address bar shows https://twitter.com before entering their password. There are several phishing sites that are made to look like legitimate websites, such as Twitter.

Twitter said that users need to check the link sent to them through the e-mail they received because it can be disguised by hackers to direct users to a malicious site, often containing a viruses or programs designed to gather information from their computer.

After all of the complaints, Twitter has now said that it reset more people’s accounts than they originally counted on. On the Twitter blog, it posted, “We unintentionally reset passwords of a larger number of accounts, beyond those that we believed to have been compromised. We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion this may have caused.”